


you're my kaleidoscope

by kamunamis



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe, College, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Penguins, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23695063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamunamis/pseuds/kamunamis
Summary: “Why’d you buy melon bread?” Rei asks, confused. Melon bread is most likely the least sweetest thing in the bakery.Nagisa beams at him. “So that you could eat with me, Rei-chan! I like it when you’re next to me.”Rei flushes at that, and his heart starts beating much faster. He knows that Nagisa probably only meant it as a friend, but the feeling of Nagisa enjoying his company still makes him happy.a fic about unconditional love and pining
Relationships: Hazuki Nagisa & Ryuugazaki Rei, Hazuki Nagisa/Ryuugazaki Rei
Comments: 4
Kudos: 48





	you're my kaleidoscope

**Author's Note:**

> this has been sitting in my drafts for too long but i just love reigisa so much <3  
> thank you to [tara](https://itsmyusualweeb.tumblr.com) for beta'ing !!

The first time Rei thinks he fell in love with Nagisa was when Nagisa came to see him while he was working on homework one morning.

“Hey, Rei-chan!” Nagisa yells from across the hall, causing everyone in the vicinity to look towards him. Rei looks up, and Nagisa runs over to him, bumping into a few tables along the way.

“Nagisa-kun, I told you to be quiet, this is a study area,” Rei says. “Don’t you have a class soon?”

Nagisa looks at him sheepishly. “Sorry, Rei-chan. Also, yeah, but I wanted to see you first!” Nagisa takes his seat across Rei, and he pulls a paper bag out of his backpack. “Here, I got you some food!”

“Set it on the table,” Rei says, looking back down at his notes. “You didn’t have to bring me food.”

Nagisa looks at him, confused. “I wanted to, though.”

He grabs one of Rei’s pens and draws a smiley face on the paper bag before setting it down. “Besides, I know you’re going to be staying really late, I don’t want you to get hungry.”

Rei smiles at him softly. He’s 90 percent sure that Nagisa’s packed mostly junk food in the bag for him, but the gesture means a lot to him. Nagisa has always meant a lot to him.

“Thank you, Nagisa-kun,” Rei says. The two of them sit there for a little while until Nagisa has to go to class.

When Rei finds himself rereading the passage over and over again because he keeps getting distracted while thinking about Nagisa, that’s when Rei figures out that maybe his love for Nagisa might be a little more romantic than he thought.

He’s not sure why he thinks that this is the first moment that he’s thought about being in love with Nagisa, since they’re almost always around each other, and it’s not even the first time that Nagisa has brought food for him on the days when he has to stay at the university until late evening. All of their memories have blurred together, but this moment speaks out to him in ways that are illogical to explain.

Their friendship itself might also be considered illogical, with their clashing personalities and mindsets. Rei has always favored logic over everything else, but he supposes that Nagisa has definitely helped him loosen up a little bit. They’ve been friends for quite a long time now, it would be hard for Nagisa to not win him over.

Nagisa is also quite beautiful in Rei’s eyes; gender has never mattered much to Rei when it comes to beauty; he figured that out a long time ago. there’s no logic in trying to restrict yourself to one gender when there is beauty in everyone. Rei’s obsession over beauty and aesthetic nearly parallels his love of logic, although Rei’s sure that it’s really just  _ Nagisa  _ that looks beautiful.

-

The next time that Rei thinks he’s fallen in love with Nagisa again is while they’re walking home from classes together one evening.

Nagisa talks animatedly about how his day went and about the ancient civilizations that he learned about in his history class. 

Rei already knows most of this information from when he took the class in the previous semester, but he still listens to Nagisa’s rambling, because it’s admittedly beautiful how passionate Nagisa gets about history.

Nagisa ends up getting distracted from his tangent when he sees some cakes in the window of a bakery. He gasps and repeatedly taps Rei-chan on the shoulder. “Rei-chan! We have to get cake!”

Before Rei can say anything about how Nagisa needs to eat his dinner before getting dessert and how unbelievably sweet the cakes are going to be, Nagisa has already grabbed his hand and dragged him to the inside of the bakery.

Nagisa is in awe of all of the pastries and cakes there, but he knows that he can’t buy everything, so he ends up buying a slice of strawberry shortcake and a melon bread.

“Why’d you buy melon bread?” Rei asks, confused. Melon bread is most likely the least sweetest thing in the bakery.

Nagisa beams at him. “So that you could eat with me, Rei-chan! I like it when you’re next to me.”

Rei flushes at that, and his heart starts beating much faster. He knows that Nagisa probably only meant it as a  _ friend _ , but the feeling of Nagisa enjoying his company still makes him happy.

The waitress brings them their orders, and the two of them eat their desserts before walking the rest of the way home.

-

Rei falls in love with Nagisa all over again when he’s on his weekend jog and he sees something in the toy store window. He stops running to take a peek at it.

It’s a blue penguin plushie, something that Nagisa would definitely enjoy. Rei remembers that Nagisa has been complaining about a group project, so he figures that getting this for Nagisa would be a great present for pushing through.

No one enjoys group projects, except for the occasional ‘leader’ type that pisses everyone off. even Rei doesn’t like group projects, but unfortunately they’re part of every class. 

Rei walks into the shop and asks an employee where to find it before picking it off of the shelf where this one and several other plushies are. He notices that there are other colors available, so he puts the blue one down in order to get the pink one instead. 

He quickly pays for it before continuing his jog.

There are no words that could even describe how he felt thinking about Nagisa in this moment, Rei just knows that he would do anything to make Nagisa happy.

Rei doesn’t miss the look on Nagisa's face when he gives the plushie to him the day after he called to say that he got a perfect score on the project.

-

Nagisa’s gotten into the habit of impulse shopping in order to avoid studying for his exams, and Rei cares about his friend too much to see him suffering. He offers to help Nagisa study, but most of the time, Nagisa brushes him off and quickly changes the subject. 

One afternoon, Rei stops by Nagisa’s house to check up on him, and at first Nagisa was happy to see him, but the moment that Rei changed the subject to studying, Nagisa got frustrated and they started fighting.

Maybe this isn’t a time where Rei should’ve fallen in love with Nagisa again, but it’s a moment where he feels so  _ strongly  _ about him that he doesn’t really know how to classify it as anything else. He cares about Nagisa so much.

Sure, even if he and Nagisa do not seem compatible on paper, Rei has always thought of himself to be the voice of reason, and he wishes that Nagisa could understand where he was coming from, which is out of love and care.

Even though Rei and Nagisa are fighting right now, Rei absolutely hates seeing the tears stream down Nagisa’s face and would do anything to comfort him. His face falls, and he stops yelling at Nagisa the moment he sees those tears, instead crouching down to the floor to give Nagisa a hug.

“I'm sorry, Nagisa-kun,” Rei says softly. “i didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“No,” Nagisa says. “You’re right. You’re always right, you’re Rei-chan, yeah?”

“Studying has just been too much for me to handle lately,” he admits. “Ignoring it won’t get me anywhere.”

Nagisa holds Rei’s hand. “Thank you, Rei-chan.”

“Of course, Nagisa-kun.”

-

Another time that he falls in love with Nagisa is while they’re on the phone together one afternoon. Sure, they’re almost always on the phone together when they don’t see each other, but tonight just feels different for some reason.

There’s nothing special about this night, or any of the other nights that Rei has fallen in love with Nagisa, but it only affirms that Rei definitely appreciates the simpler and more domestic moments he shares with Nagisa.

If anyone asked Rei how long it has been since he first fell in love with Nagisa, he would not be able to give you a straight answer. At first, Nagisa’s persistence for him to join the swim club had irked him, but in the end he realized that that persistence was what made him admire him the most, oddly. 

Perhaps it would be the time that Nagisa saved him from drowning shortly after they first met. Really, Rei slowed the swim team down, and it would have been easier if Nagisa didn’t risk his life to save Rei’s, they hardly knew each other anyway, but Nagisa still went into the ocean to save him. Nagisa claimed that it doesn’t matter how long they’ve known each other, that they’re a team, and as long as they’re a team, Nagisa will always help his teammates out.

Rei admires the compassion and team spirit that Nagisa encompasses. It’s an adorable quality of his; another factor in how Rei fell in love with him.

He’s not sure if Nagisa does love him the same way that he does, but all he wants is for Nagisa to know that he is loved and appreciated no matter how hard life gets. He wants Nagisa to be the same happy self that he always is, even if it seems impossible.

“Rei-chan?” Nagisa asks.

“Yeah, Nagisa-kun?” Rei answers.

There’s a silence, and for a moment Rei thinks that Nagisa might have fallen asleep. It’s not uncommon for him to sleep in the afternoon once class is over.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says finally. “I wouldn’t be surviving without you.”

“That’s not true, Nagisa-kun,” Rei says. “You’re - “

“Rei-chan, I love you,” Nagisa interrupts. “Not because you do things for me or convince me to do my homework, but...you’re just the best, y’know? Like I don’t know anyone else who will willingly listen to me talk for hours and hours about absolutely nothing.”

Rei is glad that Nagisa can’t see him right now, otherwise he would see the blush on his face. “It’s not nothing, Nagisa-kun, if you’re interested in it, it matters.”

“Rei-chan, there you go being sweet again,” Nagisa says.

“Love you too, Nagisa-kun.”

Rei can hear faint snores not too long after, so he hangs up and smiles to himself. 

A few hours later, the doorbell rings, and Rei opens it to see Nagisa. Before he could say anything, Nagisa pulls on Rei’s shirt to pull him down and kiss him, and Rei is very flustered.

“Nagisa-kun? What - “ Rei starts.

“I love you!” Nagisa says. “I love you in a romantic way! It’s fine if you don’t love me like that but I just had to - “

Rei kisses him softly. “I love you too, Nagisa-kun.”

**Author's Note:**

> if anyone's curious about what the [pink plushie](https://squishmallows.com/product/piper) looks like!! come talk to me on [tumblr](https://sudden-sky.tumblr.com) about reigisa or other animes !!


End file.
